Before we get to the 800-pound bear (war), let’s cover some market basics. This would be an extraordinary market situation even without facing down a very bad bear. Brazil’s soybean exports have begun to increase and ANEC says they will hit 11.7 MMT in March. But China is buying a lot of U.S. soybeans in the gut of Brazil’s marketing period for a reason. The drought in Brazil is enabling harvesting to advance quickly. It is at 44 percent, versus 25 percent this time a year ago. But soybeans in Brazil are grown on the equivalent of 76,000 football fields. Some are in excellent shape, but many this year are average at best. Among the worst is Parána where yields are down 74 percent, and the quality is mostly po...
What You Need to Know Today: There has already been a strong run of flash soybean sales announcements in recent weeks, but more than 1.4 MMT reported this morning is an exceptionally large single-day total with major implications for the market. If the sales to China and unknown destinations w...
On Friday, at 6:57 AM, President Donald Trump announced, via a social media post, a 90-day window during which up to 300,000 metric tons of product for ground beef could be imported outside of tariff-rate quotas—a move aimed at bringing down costs for American consumers. This is the secon...
From WPI Consulting
Forecasting developments in production agriculture
On behalf of a private U.S. agricultural technology provider, WPI’s team generated an econometric model to forecast the movement of concentrated corn production north and west from the traditional U.S. Corn Belt. WPI’s model has subsequently provided quantitative support to a multi-million-dollar investment into short-season corn variety development. WPI’s methodology included a series of interviews with regional grain elevators and seed consultants. Emphasizing outreach and communication with stakeholders who possess intimate sectoral knowledge – on-the-ground insights – is a regular component of WPI’s methodologies, made possible by WPI’s ever-growing network of industry contacts.